


lotuses and leaves

by OpticalCrown



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, violence or gore to come?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7509184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpticalCrown/pseuds/OpticalCrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, even after being shot off to planets a whole wormhole apart, Keith and Lance have come to the same conclusion about something.<br/>Of course, it takes nearly getting murdered by the local fauna (or the planet itself), but they're both alive in the end, and they also have something to say to each other as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning at the End

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is going to end up getting a bit... long, to say the least.

They had all been flung to the farthest, most dangerous reaches of the universe, but to Keith, what he sees on the screen right now must be the worst place out of them all.

“So Lance is... inside that?”

His fingers rise to his throat as he feels how scratched and weak his voice is. Everything is going numb, but he can still feel his face, feel how his teeth aren't clicking together right now; how his eyes are beginning to burn from being wide-open for so long.

If the Balmera is an ancient and benevolent planet-sized being, then what they are seeing must be its exact opposite – a lump of dull, pale colored strings of flesh that look ready to rub away into pieces at a moment's notice.

“How is this a _planet_?” Shiro creaks out, switching the image to a hologram and pacing around, as if seeing it from more angles will help him process this nightmare of a thing better.

“Technically there are some scavenger species that live on its surface, and debris does eventually form landmasses on the surface, so, yes. It's a planet,” Coran answers glumly, stroking at the drooping ends of his mustache.

The massive threads all pulse and ripple together like a colossal wave across the surface of the planet, and the undulations make Shiro press his lips into a thin line. He turns to Pidge.

“How's it going?”

A non-committal grunt comes from the corner where Pidge is curled up, laptop balanced on her kneecaps. Her armor is still scuffed from her own ordeal, her hair is longer, and they all can hear joints crack and pop when she fidgets, but she still incessantly jabs at the keyboard with one hand as she pushes away her glasses to rub at her eyes.

“I managed to bypass the jammer that's still functioning inside one of the ships that thing's eaten, but the problem is that _everything_ says I'm connected right now,” she seethes. “I even checked if Blue's comm was damaged, but for now it seems to be okay. I keep calling out to him, but there's no response. If he were outside of the lion, I would've seen something like that in Blue's logs. At this point, the only thing would be...” Pidge swallows and her voice trails off. She resumes her frantic typing with both hands.

“User error. So I'm trying to see right now if I can seize control and do something that might jolt this idiot awake,” she mutters, steeling her gaze as she dives back into her work. 

“I'll keep trying.”

“Thank you, Pidge.” Shiro says.

Hunk stares at the hologram, his unsettling silence about to end.

“Let's go get him.”

His voice is cold and stony, and Pidge suppresses a shudder.

“Y-you can't do that!” Keith shouts, the lump in his throat shoved away for the moment. “If we do that, we'll just end up stuck there with-!”

He chokes as Hunk stares at him with fury, but most of all, frustration.

“I _know_ that, but he's still my best friend.”

Keith bites his lip and presses a palm to his neck, unable to look at Hunk any longer.

“That's enough for now,” Allura says, her voice soft and low. “Keith's right. To rush in right now would be suicidal. If we are to rescue him, we'll need to plan. But for now,” she says, looking out the windows, “we must rest.”

 

They all trudge back to their rooms. When Keith glances back, he sees Allura still staring at the stars, the hologram flickering behind her. He drags his eyes back to the ground in front of his feet, Hunk's words still playing over and over again in his head and irritation beginning to mix in with the worry that won't leave his brain.

That's right. Hunk is Lance's best friend. Meanwhile he's just Lance's self-proclaimed rival; someone to be overtaken and humiliated – what right does he have to be so involved?

 

He only realized his own feelings a little over a month ago.


	2. keith_1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith wakes up on an unfamiliar, uninhabited planet. Luckily it doesn't seem so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just slowly, slowly building up this whole thing.

There's a deep ache emanating from his bones when he wakes up, if one can call this “waking up”. His eyes crack open a sliver, and he's slammed with a blurred mess of glowing reds and dim lighting spiraling back and forth. It feels like there's a balloon of helium inside his skull right now, gravity only exists in short bursts, and the slightest movement causes a sensation in his stomach and head akin to to being flung off a merry-go-round.

For a few agonizing ticks he lies still, not daring to even twitch or stretch the stiff muscles in his neck. The fog eventually fades from his head, and he can actually _see_ things, albeit with squinted eyes. Pain is still rattling through his body, and he decides to lay still for a bit longer, reveling in this little bit of selfishness. The constant flickering doesn't stop though, and he knows he needs to get up soon.

Sucking in a deep breath of stale air, Keith uses the walls of the cockpit to crawl back into his seat, taking the chance to stretch his shoulders and neck. They crack loudly, and the muscles of his back loosen and slump. A few taps later on the control sticks and side panels, and the Red Lion's stats pop up on a flickering holo-screen.

For a moment, Keith can only stare.

“Oh. Ohhhhh, _shit_. I'm so sorry, Red.”

He knows that Red was already a mess from his one-sided beatdown by Zarkon, but getting flung into the side of a foreign planet definitely hasn't helped. Everything but life-support is down, and when Keith feels the weak hum of his Lion under his fingertips, he feels he has a good idea why.

Self-repair is already in progress, and now all the Red Lion needs is time and energy. He checks how the repair functions are being distributed, and with a heavy heart he shifts all resources on weapon readiness to mobility and communications. A grain of dust catches in his throat and he breaks into a coughing fit.

He realizes how dry his mouth is and how his tongue feels like a brick in his mouth. The disgusting taste in it won't leave either, and he gives Red a few pats on the control panel.

“Gonna go out for a bit, 'kay, Red?”

The mouth creaks open with a wince-inducing screech, light flooding in so brightly Keith has to shield his eyes, and a gentle breeze brushes against his face, prompting him to tug off his helmet.

His jaw drops.

Nothing but green, green, green, and even more velvety greens. Keith doesn't know how he can tell, but the shade of green feels slightly off -- a shade just close enough to nature on earth, but at the same time something you would never see a plant be at home. Trees tower overhead, so thickly bunched that only the crash site has any direct sunshine. Warmth washes over him, and he lets himself bask in the golden light. Numerous birds chitter around them, and in the distance bubbling creeks and even the splashing of a waterfall can be heard.

“And here I thought I would starve,” he breathes. Still clutching the helmet in his hands, he hesitantly holds it up to his lips and speaks. Softly, reverently.

“Hello? Anyone?”

Yellow lights flash. No one answers as expected, but Keith's shoulders still slump.

He tosses it back into the cockpit and slides down, the soft, peaty ground barely making a noise as he lands. Red's mouth closes again with another terrifying grating noise, and he gives the Lion an affectionate pat again.

“Uh, I'm so sorry for fucking you up,” he says with a grimace, instinctively checking to see if Shiro will descend out of nowhere to scold him for his language.

“Well, worth a try at least.”

 

The waterfall turns out to spill into a large swimming hole, but even here the sun can only filter down in shafts. Tree branches and vines have literally interwoven into a huge net overhead, to his amazement. Within this natural cage, animals have built nests tightly packed into niches between the branches, and multi-winged birds and insects flutter and soar from one end to another. Their iridescent wings glitter so brightly that sometimes Keith has to shield his eyes from the reflections.

Water ripples over sand and glassy-smooth stones in the swimming hole, and he can see his reflection wavering in it. Blood has dried and crusted under his nose, and when he wipes at the stain, the blood sticks to his glove, brown and crumbly. Now that he thinks about it, he must be disgusting. He doesn't even know how long he was out, and right now he must be the luckiest soul ever to have stumbled upon such a luscious planet. With puffed out cheeks and quick peeks at either side in case there's any alien inhabitants he's missed, he yelps and splashes in, wading through until the water is up to his chest. He splashes some more water onto his face, washing off all the grime and sweat, sighing in relief before stripping off his suit. The armor comes off first, and to his surprise it floats. Next he undoes the clasps of the black bodysuit and peels the entire thing off his skin. He washes everything, then pulls it all with him to the waterfall, where he gulps down as much water as he can fill his stomach with. The chest plate bobs by, and he yells and grabs it as he notices that an entire portion of the high neck has chipped off.

“Come on,” he mutters, immediately going to check if the displacement-pockets still work. He holds his hands over one of the thigh pieces, and he lets out a breath as the lights glow and his Bayard materializes in his arms. A sneeze tickles his nose, and he dives under for one last time before getting out, dragging everything with him. There's a few anxious moments where's he hops around naked, but he wrings out the body suit and it dries in minutes, a testament to Altean tech. Dressing himself takes longer than usual since his fingers are numb from the cold, but it also feels like some of his worries have been washed away with the dirt. The moment he's done and adjusting the gauntlets, a screen pops up with a list of materials that Red needs. There's a whole slew of things he doesn't recognize, but he's glad that there's at least _something_ he can get.

 

“I'm back,” he calls, slowly tapping away at the holo-screen over his wrist.

“Transfer?”

His hovering finger taps the button, and at his thighs the pockets beep while the water in them is directly funneled into the Lion where necessary.

“Oh, that's really cool,” he mutters to himself, “better tell Pidge when I get back.”

Hopefully Pidge will be alright. After all, the tiny Paladin has a razor sharp wit, smarts that Keith definitely doesn't have, and also probably better common sense than all of them combined. He can't imagine the castle without Pidge.

“Pidge is gonna be fine,” he reassures himself. It's darker than he remembers, and when he looks up, he can't help but suck in a sharp breath. The trees have already recovered, and are growing new, intertwining branches to suck up the sunlight.

He sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you weren't expecting for Keith to not even mention Lance at all for this entire chapter.


End file.
